@Urabrask Revealed
I've got this little baby here:
plus a machete (to be honest, I use it for garden work, but it
is a machete), as well as three weeks of food and drink for two persons and the necessary toilet paper to get rid of it.
![Grinning face with sweat :sweat_smile: 😅](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f605.png)
For probably obvious reasons I would prefer to own firearms, but even more so than all those US liberals who suddenly realize that yes, there are background checks and yes, you won't get your first gun right over the counter at the same day, getting a firearm in Germany is a lengthy process including a whole lot of requirements, chiefly you need to prove to the state that you have a need for a firearm in the first place.
Just to clarify here:
To become a legal owner of a firearm the most common (and easy!) way is to join a shooting club (Schützenverein/Sportschützenverein). Before you can even think of applying for a firearms license you need to be a member of such a club for 12 months. During that time you have to prove that you train regularly (12-18 times) by documenting all training/shooting sessions in a "Schussbuch" (shooting book). Since you cannot legally own firearms during that time you are limited to the club's weapons, if they have any that you can use on the shooting range.
Now if the 12 months period is over you can approach your club leader that you want to apply for a firearms license (Waffenbesitzkarte or WBK). The first step here is that the shooting league that your club is part of confirms that you have a need for the kind of guns you want to own (which you should have to think about beforehand; a WBK is not a carte blanche allowing you to buy random guns!). This can take around 4 weeks.
You also need to take part in an operator course with both practical and theoretical parts that you have to pass.
Once this is done you can apply for a WBK/license with the relevant local government agency (which one differes from county to county). This starts a whole slew of background checks - both criminal through the state police (no criminal record, no links to groups under observation) and medical (no addictions, for example, no known psych problems) - to determine whether the state deems you worthy of being a firearms owner. Also, you have to prove to the relevant agency handling your license application that you already own a firearms safe suitable for the guns you intend to buy.
This, again, can take anywhere between a few days and up to several months (the average seems to be around 4-6 weeks). Then actually buying the gun and having it registered again can take some time. By and large you're probably looking at 15 to 18 months before you can actually
own your own firearm, and initial costs (club membership, courses, permissions, gun safe) of ~1.500 €
without owning a gun.
Oh, and you have to remain active in the club or you'll lose the license again.
And if you finally have this all done, just remember that several types of guns and magazines are actually
verboten. That is, any magazine for "long guns" above a capacity of 10 rds. is prohibited. So you can get your AR clone that'll even look like the real deal, but it'll be semi-automatic and the magazine will only carry 10 rounds. Oh, and guns are pretty expensive, and gun stores in Germany tend to be small affairs so the chance of you getting what you want is pretty tiny. *sighs*